The global child abuse allegations surrounding Catholic Church priests literally landed at Pope Benedict’s front door yesterday.A group of victims appeared on Italian television to claim that two dozen priests had abused children at a school for the deaf for decades. Former pupils at the school spoke on a live broadcast on RAI, an Italian state television channel.
The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) had appealed to Benedict to take action while in his previous role as Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the office charged with disciplining clergy.
It seems that the lid is about to blow on global child abuse claims in the Catholic Church, as new allegations are propelled into the media spotlight on a daily basis. This is highlighted by the fact that 5 of last week’s most read timesonline.co.uk articles were concerned with the Church’s child abuse allegations.
The Catholic Church’s response to this crisis has been terrible to say the least. There has been a distinct lack of response from official spokespeople which has allowed the media frenzy to escalate out of control. It has emerged that in the past the Catholic Church has tried to keep claims of child abuse ‘hush hush’ by paying off victims large sums of money. One such example was seen recently in Ireland where one woman was paid £45,000 only on condition that she never reveals details of her allegations. Furthermore, to date only a small proportion of the priests to be accused of abuse have faced legal proceedings as Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II have continually ordered those in question to a life of ‘prayer and penitence’.
The actions of the Italian victims seems to have provided the drastic wake up call the Catholic Church needed to address their problems as it was announced a global inquiry over the cover-up of child sex abuse scandals in the Church will be carried out. The sheer scale of the job at hand was reflected in the news that the inquiry is estimated to cost more than £40 million and five years to complete.
The Catholic Church and the brand it represents have been rocked to the core by the recent wave of sex abuse claims. From a PR perspective, the church’s passive strategy has left a lot to be desired. It has taken immense pressure from the public and the media for this inquiry to be announced, but how relevant will the investigation be? My worry is that the church will merely scratch at the surface of this problem and fail to go into any great detail as to provide answers.
The inquiry is expected to cost around £40 million, but is a figure nearer £100 or £200 million what’s needed to fully investigate the sex abuse claims that have manifested in the Catholic Church?
I have just been doing my content analysis on the reactions to our Holy Father’s letter of apology to the Irish people. I found that a few days before the letter the papers were pretty much portraying him as some one taking action, although gradually they began to turn and the blame was at his door by the time the letter was published.
ReplyDeleteYour right, they did get their PR and communications wrong:
The letter was seen as too late and events had developed further than what the letter had intended to address.
Rather than trying to get the facts out on the table and explain the pope’s actions as the Cardinal of Munich the Vatican retreated within itself and saw it as some sort of protestant/atheist plot.